144 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 225. 



finding that the former broke faith with her, could 

 not help giving way to occasional murmurings, 

 and these found vent in (among others) a poetical 

 Presbyterian tract, entitled Melancholy Sonnets, or 

 Fe7'gusias Complaint upon Heptarchus, in which 

 the author reduced to rhyme the aforesaid Co- 

 mical History, adding thereto all the evils this ill- 

 starred union had entailed upon the land after 

 thirty-five years' experience. This curious pro- 

 duction was " Printed at Elguze ? for Pedaneous, 

 and sold by Circumferaneous, below the Zenith, 

 1741."* Charles II., when crowned at Scone, 

 took the solemn league and covenant ; but not 

 finding it convenient to carry out that part of his 

 coronation oath, left the Presbyterians at the 

 •Restoration in the hands of their enemies. To 

 mark their sense of this breach of faith, there was 

 published a little book f describing the inaugura- 

 tion of the young profligate, which expressively 

 purports to be " Printed at Edinburgh in the Year 

 of Covenant-breaking." The Scots folk had such 

 a horror of anything of a deistical tendency, that 

 John Goldie had to publish his Essays, or an At- 

 tempt to distinguish true from false Religion (popu- 

 pularly called " Goldie's Bible"), at Glasgow, 

 " Printed for the Author, and sold by him at Kil- 

 marnock, 1779;" neither printer nor bookseller 

 would, apparently, be identified with the unclean 

 thing. Both churchmen and dissenters convey 

 their exultations, or denouncements, upon political 

 changes, through the medium of imprints ; and 

 your correspondents who have been discussing 

 that matter, will see in some of these that the 

 " Good Old Cause " may be " all round the com- 

 pass," as Captain Cuttle would say, depending 

 wholly upon the party spectacles through which 

 you view it. Legal Fundamental Liberty, in an 

 epistle from Selburne to Lenthal, is " Reprinted 

 in the Year of Hypocritical and Abominable Dis- 

 simulation, 1G49 ; " on the other hand, The Little 

 Bible of that militant soldier Captain Butler is 

 <l Printed in the First Year of England's Liberty, 

 1649." The Last Will and Testament of Sir John 

 Presbyter is "Printed in the Year of Jubilee, 

 1647." A New Meeting of Ghosts at Tyburn, in 

 which Oliver, Bradshaw, and Peters figure, ex- 

 hibits its royal tendency, being " Printed in the 

 Year of the Rebellious Phanatick's Downfall, 

 1660." "Printed at N., with Licence," is the 

 cautious imprint of a republication of Dolemaiis 



* Tliis resembles in its doggrel style Scotland's 

 Glory and her Shame, and A Poem on the Burgess Oath. 

 Can any of your correspondents, familiar with Scottish 

 typographical curiosities, tell me who was the author, 

 or authors, of these ? 



f A Phcenix, or the Solemn League and Covenant, frc, 

 12mo. pp. 168, with a frontispiece representing Charles 

 burning the book of the Solemn League and Covenant, 

 above the flames from which hovers a phcenix. 



Conference in 1681. A proper Project to Startle 

 Fools is " Printed in a Land where Self's cry'd 

 up, and Zeal's cry'd down, 1699." The Impartial 

 Accountant, ivherein it is demonstratively made 

 known how to pay the Nationul Debt, and that with- 

 out a New 2aar, or any Inconveniency to the People, 

 is " Printed for a Proper Person," and, I may add, 

 can be had of a certain person, if Mr. Gladstone 

 will come down with an adequate consideration 

 for the secret ! These accountants are all mys- 

 terious, — you would think they were plotting to 

 empty the treasury rather than to fill it ; another 

 says his Essay upon National Credit is " Printed 

 by A. It. in Bond's Stables ! " Thomas Scott, the 

 English minister at Utrecht, published, among 

 other oddities, Vox Ceelis ; or Newes from Heaven, 

 being Imaginary Conversations there between 

 Henry VIII. (/), Edward VI, Prince Henrie, and 

 others, "Printed in Elysium, 1624." Edward 

 Raban, an Englishman, who set up a press in the 

 far north, published an edition of Lady Culros' 

 Godlie Dreame, and finding that no title com- 

 manded such respect among the canny Scots as 

 that of Laird, announced the book to be " Im- 

 printed at Aberdene, by E. R., Laird of Letters, 

 1644." 'The Instructive Library, containing a list 

 of apocryphal books, and a satire upon some theo- 

 logical authors of that day, is " Printed for the 

 Man in the Moon, 1710." The Oxford Sermon 

 Versified, by Jacob Gingle, Esq., is "Printed by 

 Tim. Atkins at Dr. Sacheverell's Head, near St. 

 Paul's, 1729." "Printed, and to be had at the 

 Pamphlett Shops of London and Westminster," 

 wa3 a common way of circulating productions of 

 questionable morals or loyalty. The Chapmen, or 

 Flying-Stationers, had many curious dodges of 

 this kind to give a relish to their literary wares : 

 The Secret Histori/ of Queen Elizabeth and the 

 Earl of Essex derived additional interest in the 

 eyes of their country customers by its being 

 "Printed at Cologne for Will-with-the-Wisp, at 

 the Sign of the Moon in the Ecliptic, 1767." The 

 Poems of that hard-headed Jacobite, Alexander 

 Robertson of Struan, are " Printed at Edinburgh 

 for Charles Alexander, and sold at his house in 

 Geddes Close, where Subscribers may call for their 

 Copies, circa 1750." * The New Dialogues of the 

 Dead are " Printed for D. Y., at the foot of Par- 

 nassus Hill, 1684." Professor Tenant's poem of 

 Papistry Stormed imitates the old typographers, 

 it being " Imprentit at Edinbrogh be Oliver and 

 Boyd, anno 1827." A rare old book is Goddard's 



* I have not met with the name of such a bookseller 

 elsewhere, and would like to hear the history of this 

 book ; it was again published with the addition of 

 The Martial Achievements of the liobertso?is of Struan, 

 and in imitation of the original is printed at Edinburgh 

 by and for Alexander Robertson, in Morison's Close, 

 where subscribers may call for their copies (17S5?). 



